


Part 13: Waiting

by kw20742



Series: Something Like Love [14]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Canon Lesbian Relationship, Developing Relationship, Explicit Language, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-05 17:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16372043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kw20742/pseuds/kw20742
Summary: Just before and after the little snippit at the end of 2.7 (two days after The Picnic and the same day as Part 12: “Still Just Plain Maggie”) in which Maggie chastises Olly and then runs down the stairs at the courthouse. Where’s she coming from? Where’s she going? Why is she in such a hurry? Here’s my answer…





	Part 13: Waiting

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Maggie exclaims impatiently as her phone buzz-buzz-buzzes in her jacket pocket, indicating the arrival of a text message. Oh, to get back to normal life so she can at least fucking pee in peace!

Olly will just have to wait. If they’re called back in, he knows where she is.

She wraps up her business in the loo, hurriedly running hands under lukewarm water and then swiping them through the new-fangled high-powered hand dryer, all the while wishing for some good, old fashioned paper towels. That would actually dry her hands rather than make such an ostentatious show of failing so completely.

Shaking off the beads of excess water, she hoists her bag onto her shoulder, grabs her notebook in one hand, and takes her phone from her pocket with the other. She uses her still-damp thumb to activate the screen to see what Olly needs, only to discover (wonders truly will never cease!) that it’s Jocelyn—Jocelyn!—who’s texted her.

“Come wait with me?” reads the simple message, and Maggie’s heart flutters just a little.

She honestly feels like a teenager again. Jocelyn Knight has just sent her the contemporary equivalent of a note passed furtively in class!

The last seventy-two hours have been a whirlwind of giddy pleasure and unforeseen delights as they’ve begun to negotiate the give and take of a new relationship. Or is it an old relationship with a new beginning? Or maybe a new relationship with an old beginning? Whatever it is, it’s exciting and wonderful and surprising. And complicated, of course. That was always bound to be the case.

But this is the Jocelyn she fell in love with: witty, gentle, kind, loving. Confident. Happy. And Maggie’s overjoyed to have her back again.

 

***

“Come wait with me?”

She’s positive she hit ‘send,’ but Jocelyn double checks. Just to make sure.

She doesn’t like texting. It wasn’t quite so required as it is now when she stopped practicing three years ago, so she never really had occasion to do it. She wasn’t able to text on her old flip-top phone in any case, but Ben had encouraged her to step up her game once they began working together on the Latimer brief. He wanted to be able to be in touch with her readily, late at night, without waking his young daughters by yammering into a telephone. So, one of their first orders of business was to drive over to Weymouth and get Jocelyn this new-fangled gadget.

And, she has to (begrudgingly) admit, it is a rather handy device. Not only is it a phone, but you can check the weather, the news, read email, get directions, and browse the Internet, all on a little four-inch screen. And, perhaps best of all, the technology of texting means a barrister can communicate with her journalist-lover without ever letting on to anyone that she’s done so!

So, there are, Jocelyn is learning, a few unforeseen advantages to all this confounded modern machinery after all. Additionally, she concedes that she wouldn’t be able to keep up with all her reading of novels if it weren’t for audio books. Because while she does prefer a good, old fashioned tome in her hands, she can’t read nearly as much or for as long as she’d like these days.

She _is_ going to have to ask Ben, however, (or maybe Maggie will know?) how to enlarge the font on this thing; her failing eyes just aren’t up to it.

All this is to say that, having texted her request, her invitation, to Maggie, there’s nothing for Jocelyn to do now but wait. She places the phone face-up on the bench beside her, hoping for the little ‘ding’ that will signal the arrival of Maggie’s reply.

But, she reminds herself while cradling her mum’s hairbrush in her hands, if Maggie doesn’t respond or can’t come wait with her now, that means nothing other than she’s probably busy. With her Boy Wonder. Or the Latimers. Or both. Maggie’s professional life has been turned upside down in this past year, first by the police investigation and then by covering the trial. So, if she can’t come wait with her, it should not be taken as a rejection of any sort. It. Should. Not. She reminds herself sternly.

But Jocelyn’s still shy about all this, fearful that Maggie may come to her senses at any moment and remember that she could do so much better than a frosty old closeted lesbian who’s thousands of pounds in debt, and going blind as well.

Plus, it’s so very out of character for Jocelyn, all this laughing and loving and feeling. So deeply. With the entirety of her whole beating heart. Being so vulnerable. And it’s nothing to do with the sex. Not exactly. She’s had affairs, other lovers. But she’s never let them in. They never saw her.

But Maggie does. Maggie always has done. Since at least that weekend in London, and probably long before it. It’s what Jocelyn’s wanted, but it’s still quite frightening. To be truly and thoroughly seen, laid bare, emotionally and physically, by someone else. So suddenly.

But Maggie isn’t just ‘someone,’ Jocelyn reminds herself with a chuckle and a vigorous shake of her head. And none of this is sudden. It’s Maggie. Her clever journalist with the dazzling smile. Whom she’s loved, and by whom she’s wanted to _be_ loved, for such a long time. Well before she knew it, or was able to articulate. Even to herself.

Twisting Veronica’s brush around in her hands, Jocelyn startles herself by wondering, quite out of the blue, if her mum would entirely approve. Of she and Maggie. Together.

It seems a bit ridiculous that she should be concerned about such things at her age, and not least because the funeral was almost a week ago now. So, it’s not like she can simply run over to the care home and ask her mum during breakfast tomorrow; she hasn’t been able to do that for many years now. But a child still wishes for a parent’s approval. Their blessing, their support.

But as close as she and Veronica were, there were some things they just never got around to talking about. And Jocelyn suddenly misses her mum, the keen, sharp-witted, energetic woman that she used to know, whose retirement was even more inspiringly fulsome than had been her career as a pioneering botany professor, more than she has in years.

Her mum, it also occurs, spent much more time with the _Echo_ ’s editor than Jocelyn’s ever done. She knew her better, for longer. They were friends. Jocelyn knew that. They regularly walked together on the cliffs, and Veronica often mentioned her various adventures with Maggie in her letters, especially in those early years. And even after Veronica moved into the care home (that Maggie had researched and recommended), Maggie visited her for dinner at least a couple of times each week. All while Jocelyn was still living in London.

Jocelyn seems to remember, too, that Maggie had volunteered to edit what Veronica quite confidently described as her “first” novel. She makes a mental note to ask Maggie about it. And to find the manuscript. If it’s still in the house, she suddenly wants quite badly to read it.

But what Jocelyn hadn’t known until Maggie told her a few weeks ago, over stir-fry at that Thai café on the High Street the night before the start of the trial, was that her mum had driven Maggie to chemo treatments in Bournemouth. For stage two breast cancer. Not only had they kept this news from her (although she wasn’t in touch with Maggie at the time, it’s true), but Maggie and her mum had obviously been closer friends than Jocelyn had ever realized.

And then she inhales sharply, simultaneously remembering and newly ashamed of how she treated Maggie on the day of the funeral. As if she were just one more casual mourner paying their respects. She sent her to fetch Veronica’s belongings from the care home and then, laser focused on her own jumbled emotions and entirely oblivious to the fact that Maggie was (perhaps still is?) likely mourning, too, just walked off, leaving her alone on the balcony. After saying something thoroughly stupid and thoughtless and (as Maggie reminded her the night of their picnic) totally untrue about being alone now that her mum’s gone. Maggie was right: Jocelyn often doesn’t see her. Because it had simply been easier not to.

She has only herself to blame. Particularly because, once she moved to London in pursuit of a legal career, Jocelyn kept so definitively separate her lives there and here. It was just easier. Compartments.

In hindsight, this had facilitated, among other things, Jocelyn having lived most of her life in the closet. Even to herself. She’d been too busy, too focused on ensuring her lofty professional ascent, to care much about romantic attachments. Or even just plain sexual ones. And her mum, even while (it seemed to Jocelyn) loving her husband, valued her own career, her own independence and, so, never once pressured Jocelyn to get married or have children.

If anything, it was just the opposite: Jocelyn was encouraged, _expected_ even, to have a career, to make something of herself in a man’s world. And she understood that her self-imposed goal of becoming a QC by the time she was forty-five would likely preclude a husband and children in any case.

Consequently, who Jocelyn slept with, or if she did at all, wasn’t ever all that important in the lives of the formidable Knight women.

In her bi-annual weekend visits to London, Veronica never remarked one way or another about the fact that her daughter preferred to live alone and didn’t ever seem to be dating anyone. Even if Jocelyn had been, she always stayed at theirs anyway. Easier to maintain her compartments that way. No extra toothbrush hanging around the bathroom to distract and annoy her. No dishes left in the sink. No bed left unmade or, worse, made incorrectly. No crumbs or butter-y finger stains on the morning paper. (Yet she remembers how surprised she was that one weekend when the crumbs and stains didn’t seem to bother her all that much when they were Maggie’s; that, she chuckles to herself, should have been evidence enough of having fallen in love.)

And because her mum never had any occasion to meet any of her (admittedly very few) lovers, the topic of their gender—and thus of Jocelyn’s sexual orientation—had never come up. She didn’t really think of herself as a lesbian, in any case. Until Maggie.

It was quite logical, too, that Jocelyn’s visits to Broadchurch were always solo trips. They were, after all, meant to be holidays, time away from the chaos and pressure of arguing cases at The Old Bailey. When that level of high alert is your everyday, you can easily forget to breathe, to relax, regardless of how much you love your work. And as much as Jocelyn did— _does_ —love being a prosecutor, she depended on her quiet holidays at home in Broadchurch to recharge and rejuvenate. It made perfect sense that she wouldn’t bring anyone with her, or see much of anyone while she was home. She’s an introvert’s introvert, and she likes being alone.

And so, life went on. But it also got a bit away from her, as it turns out. It’s not that she _intended_ never to make a commitment to a partner; it just never happened. Probably because she didn’t know who or what she was looking for and never really tried that hard to figure it out. She was busy.

But then, quite by accident, she met the _Echo_ ’s new editor that one windy day at the start of her July holiday, trying to light a cigarette on the Broadchurch pier. And that was that. She gave her heart to Maggie that day. She just didn’t know it then.

Recently, too, Jocelyn’s been wondering if the lack of pressure her mum put on her to get married and have children was because Veronica understood. Who she is. And, much later, that she was in love. Is it possible that her mum knew even when she did not?

She thinks back to that time in the grocery store, only the second time she had ever set eyes on Maggie Radcliffe, when her mum was uncharacteristically pushy about inviting her over for tea. Once Jocelyn got over being thoroughly annoyed and mildly embarrassed, she never did stop to wonder why her mum had behaved so atypically. Had Veronica noticed the way her daughter’s breath caught when Maggie smiled? Was she trying to let her know that it was alright, that she understood? That she saw her? Supported her?

And what about the day Jocelyn took Maggie out on the boat? It had been Veronica who’d insisted on packing them a lunch to accompany the wine Jocelyn had already planned to bring. And there was Christmas, when Veronica and Maggie had conspired to keep secret the fact that Maggie would be joining the intrepid Knight women for dinner.

Then, of course, there was that awful, terrible, horrible New Year’s Day when Veronica kept pestering Jocelyn as she feverishly packed her suitcase, asking over and over again what was wrong and why she suddenly felt the need to get back to London so urgently when she had planned to stay through the weekend, and had something happened, and would she be sure to at least say ‘goodbye’ to Maggie.

And Jocelyn had never wanted so badly in her entire life for anyone to Just. Stop. Talking.

She fairly ran out of the house to get in the taxi that took her to the train in Axminster. She remembers the panic, the desperation; she couldn’t get out of Broadchurch fast enough. Any conveyance, going any _where_ , would have done that day.

Veronica had known; she must’ve. Jocelyn is almost sure of it now, thinking about it. And if so, she may very well be, even at this moment, smiling down upon her daughter’s exhilarating new adventure.

But it’s too late now to ask her. To thank her. For trying to push Jocelyn along on her (as it turned out) unnecessarily tortuous journey toward happiness.

Quite without thinking about it, Jocelyn lifts the back of her mum’s hairbrush to her lips and kisses it tenderly. Then she lowers it to her heart and, with eyes closed, just holds it there, breathing deep, grounding, cleansing breaths into her belly. She sighs: She had missed so much. But, with Maggie by her side, she’s on her way to putting some of it right.

“Ms. Knight?”

“Yes?” Jocelyn asks of Jake, the brawny (but very kind and soft-spoken) security guard currently dominating the doorframe of the barristers’ robing room, as she abruptly returns from her reverie. Her revelation.

“There’s a Maggie Radcliffe to see you. Says you’re expecting her.”

Her heart leaping in what can only be described as boundless joy, Jocelyn is able just to nod as Joshua instructs, “You’ll need to come sign her in.”

“Right,” she responds as she rises, grabs her phone off the bench, returns her mum’s brush to the top shelf of her locker, and follows him down the hallway.

 

***

“Hi.”

“Hi, yourself,” Maggie says, not quite sure what to do now that she’s here. She eyes the security guard behind them; is this the time and place for a kiss? Nope. A hug? Doubtful. This is Jocelyn’s turf, so she’s going to follow her lead as they navigate together this first journey into the brave new world outside their bedrooms.

Sensing that Jocelyn is simultaneously running through a version of this negotiation in her own head, Maggie settles for using her free hand to gently grasp Jocelyn’s elbow. “You alright?”

Jocelyn nods. “I just wanted…” She purposefully pauses to think, to breathe. To feel. She wants to be clear. Honest. She owes it to Maggie now. To make up for past sins. And it finally comes to her: “I just wanted you.”

With a warm, gentle smile that crinkles her nose, Maggie nods. In complete understanding. Because she wanted Jocelyn, too.

Jocelyn signs Maggie in on the clipboard while Jake efficiently checks Maggie’s ID. He glances up just briefly to make sure the picture on her driver’s licence matches the person in front of him. And then it’s over, their first official encounter with The Real World. Nothing’s exploded and everything’s just as it was. Maggie’s not sure what she was expecting, and she didn’t realize she was nervous about any of it.

“Come,” Jocelyn encourages, leading Maggie down the hall, “there’s a little courtyard out this way. Ben will let us know when we’re back.”

 

***

“Ah! Sharon,” Jocelyn exclaims, holding the door open for Maggie and ushering her into the courtyard where Sharon is (no surprise) sucking the life out of a cigarette. “I think you know Maggie Radcliffe, yes? Editor of the _Broadchurch Echo_?”

Turning quickly around, Sharon confirms, “Yeah, hi,” eyes meeting Maggie’s by way of a greeting. But she’s surprised, questioning.

“Hi,” says Maggie, reaching for Sharon’s hand, “nice to see you again.”

“You too.” Sharon shakes Maggie’s hand, but inquires wordlessly of Jocelyn at the same time, “A journalist? Backstage?”

“I’m off the record here,” Maggie interjects, fully acquainted over a long career with the daggers Sharon’s currently launching at Jocelyn with her eyes: scorn, exasperation, and suspicion in equal measure.

“Sharon,” Jocelyn begins, hoping to repel the daggers, “Maggie is my, uh…” But then she looks to Maggie for help, and Maggie laughs heartily.

Jocelyn’s not at all concerned about being out, about people knowing about their relationship. Quite the contrary; she’s so proud that Maggie chose her. All those years ago. And now, too. Especially now, in spite of all her mistakes. She’s tired of hiding. But they just haven’t got around yet to talking about how to talk about themselves. Each other, together. To other people.

Jocelyn cannot help but notice the demanding tug in her belly reassert itself: She and Maggie have had other priorities these last couple of days. But they’ve also known that reality would eventually interject itself into their hazy, magical dream world. And she’s secretly delighted that Sharon is the first person to know. “Let her see just how bloody human I really am,” Jocelyn thinks smugly to herself.

Maggie shakes her head, overtly (but affectionately) mocking Jocelyn. “I’m her ‘uh,’” she confirms jovially as she wraps her left arm around Jocelyn’s right and plants a playful kiss on her cheek.

“Right,” Sharon says with arched brows and a surprised but (Jocelyn suspects) marginally supportive smirk, looking from Jocelyn to Maggie and then back again as she takes another ferocious drag of her cigarette.

“And, Maggie,” Jocelyn begins meaningfully, finally ready to let her lover in on some important details, “Sharon was my pupil, and then my junior, what,” she looks to Sharon for confirmation, “twenty years ago now?”

Sharon nods as she turns her head to exhale a puff of smoke. “About that, yes.”

Eyebrows raised, Maggie looks from one to the other of these powerful, dueling barristers, and has so many questions.

“I plucked her off the streets of Oxford for a program I had going to get more women of colour into practice.”

Sharon rolls her eyes, taking another long drag of her cigarette, “You quite like that narrative, don’t you.”

Jocelyn smirks; she’s always enjoyed needling Sharon. She just makes it so easy.

“I had A-levels and First Class Honours,” Sharon clarifies for Maggie’s benefit, “just like she did.”

At that, she vehemently flicks her cigarette out into the gravel and heads for the door. “Back to work. _Some_ of us have other cases to prepare for,” she throws over her shoulder at Jocelyn before yanking open the door and disappearing inside.

At which point Maggie turns to Jocelyn, mouth unabashedly agape and eyes wide, as if to ask, “What the actual fuck did you get me into out here?!”

And Jocelyn, smirking rather apologetically out of one side of her face, explains while ushering Maggie toward the nearest bench, “She’s worried. Her son’s in trouble.”

“Can you tell me?” Maggie asks, curious but also mindful of Sharon’s privacy.

“I don’t really know much,” Jocelyn shrugs. “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time a couple of years ago and was convicted of manslaughter.”

“Shit! Jocelyn! How old is he?” Maggie asks as they sit.

“Must be twenty-five or so,” she responds, calculating based on how old he was (if she remembers correctly) when she and Sharon worked together. “He’s in Belmarsh.”

“Oh, no!”

“Got beaten up. Quite badly.”

“By a guard or a prisoner?”

“I don’t know the details.”

“Poor kid. Can they appeal?”

“The legal team says no, apparently.”

“ _You_ should take a look,” Maggie encourages, reaching for Jocelyn’s hand now that they’re on their own in the courtyard.

“I’m a prosecutor, Maggie,” she responds as her heart skips a beat—again—because Maggie Radcliffe loves her! And is holding her hand! And it’s so comforting and familiar and thrilling all at once.

“You weren’t always,” Maggie responds pointedly, thinking of her favourite barrister’s defence of Jack Marshall all those years ago. “Plus, your justice system doesn’t always work as it should.”

“It’s not _my_ justice system,” Jocelyn retorts, getting irritated now. She can sense Maggie climbing onto her social justice soapbox, getting ready to storm the barn.

With an arched brow and pursed lips, Maggie looks pointedly at Jocelyn: “It’s a little more yours than his.”

“Maggie,” Jocelyn warns.

“Jocelyn,” Maggie reproaches.

“You are so _bloody_ infuriating!”

“Only when you know I’m right.”

With a roll of her eyes and a little sideways shake of her head, Jocelyn huffs in exasperation and then exhales slowly, audibly, conceding with a slight pout that turns into a gentle smile.

Maggie allows herself a triumphant little giggle as they smile together, at each other, and Jocelyn gives Maggie’s hand a little squeeze. Of promise. Of hope. Of happiness. And even of gratitude. For always encouraging her to be her best self.

“Sharon did ask me to take the case in the first place,” she admits, “just after I moved back to Broadchurch. But with my eyes…”

“But _now_ you know you can do it,” Maggie urges. “Maybe ask Ben to work with you on it?”

“I’m not sure Sharon would want me anywhere near it a this point.”

“Well, why not ask her?”

Jocelyn is silent now, considering it seriously for the first time since Sharon originally sent her the files. She doesn’t like Sharon all that much. They used to argue. A lot. Truth be told, though, it’s because they’re so much alike. But she does _believe_ her. Which is really all that matters. On top of which, Maggie is right: Her Majesty’s ancient and august justice system _doesn’t_ always work as it should. Mistakes get made frequently enough. In fact, it’s looking more and more likely that a mistake is about to get made right here at Wessex Crown Court.

With a resigned sigh, she lets go of Maggie’s hand to bring hers to rest low on Maggie’s thigh, her long fingers caressing the inside of Maggie’s knee. “It feels so good finally be able to touch you,” she muses aloud.

Maggie grins in complete agreement as she puts her hand on top of Jocelyn’s and leans in for a quick kiss.

“I’ll talk to Sharon. But,” Jocelyn asks, smiling softly, her nose just touching Maggie’s, “can I get through _this_ one first?”

Beaming, Maggie nods, resisting the urge to tease about this latest victory. How fiercely she loves and admires this obstinate and brilliant and beautiful woman.

“Speaking of which, though,” Maggie whips her phone out of her jacket pocket, checking to be sure she hasn’t accidentally muted the blasted thing. But no. There’s just no news. Olly hasn’t even posted anything on Twitter since she last saw him. Fuck.

“What the bloody hell do you think is taking so long?” Maggie almost roars out of sheer frustration, ramming her phone back into her pocket. “It’s so fucking obvious that he’s guilty.”

Jocelyn shrugs and shakes her head. Former crime reporter Maggie knows the answer just as well as she does: Based on the questions the jurors are asking, they’re not sure Mark _couldn’t_ have murdered Danny. Which means they can’t be sure that Joe _did_.

‘Beyond a reasonable doubt’ and ‘innocent until proven guilty’: The two central lynchpins of democratic justice systems the world over. And the burden is on the prosecution to make its case. But the longer the jury deliberates, the more likely it is that Jocelyn has failed.

Brought very much back to the present moment, and the reason she’s sitting out here twiddling her thumbs in the first place, Jocelyn rises abruptly, walks a few steps to the edge of the garden, and fishes her pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the pocket of her black silk barrister’s jumper.

“Do you mind?” she remembers to ask Maggie just before lighting up.

She shakes her head, “Course not.”

With her weight on her back leg, her centre of gravity very much in her hips, and her right elbow resting on her left forearm, Jocelyn takes a long, reflective, committed drag.

“I don’t usually get so worked up waiting for a verdict,” she mutters, exhaling away from Maggie.

“This one matters.”

“They all matter.”

“This one’s different, though.”

She nods. “It shouldn’t have been so difficult. It didn’t have to be. If only I’d had that bloody confession.”

“You did the best you could with what you had.”

Just at that moment, Jocelyn’s phone ‘dings’ the arrival of a text message, followed seconds later by the ‘buzz-buzz-buzz’ of Maggie’s phone. Jocelyn turns toward Maggie, and they communicate in eloquent silence: The jury's back.


End file.
